Protests against new anti-democratic laws in Ukraine are increasing in intensity, with four citizens reported dead. As you can see in these extraordinary images by Ilya Varlamov, the demonstrators are using rockets made with fireworks. They look like scenes from some science-fiction movie about urban warfare.

The latest reports talk about at least four people killed and hundreds injured by the police. After the massive protests against the government's rejection against the European Union in favor of an alliance with the former Russian oppressors, Kiev officials announced new repressive laws limiting the people's right to protest. These urban battles are the people's reaction to those laws.

Ukraine was a former Soviet Republic, created after a civil war between pro-communist and the Ukrainian People's Republic armies at the beginning of the 20th century, right after the fall of the Russian Empire. The communists won, and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was established. In theory, it was an independent state, but in fact—like all republics in the USSR and satellite countries—it was under a tight control by the Kremlin.

From the AP: "A protester throws a Molotov cocktail during clashes with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. Three people have died in clashes between protesters and police in the Ukrainian capital Wednesday, according to medics on the site, in a development that will likely escalate Ukraine's two month-long political crisis. The mass protests in the capital of Kiev erupted after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych spurned a pact with the European Union in favor of close ties with Russia, which offered him a $15 billion bailout. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)"

__________________

"As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind I'd still be in prison."

Kiev grows more violent every day as Ukrainians riot against its authoritarian government. Witnessing the transformation through media outlets could never sum up the amount of devastation conveyed in this single image of the city's Independence Square.

Not following it as close as the "Russian and Orange" revolutions, its kind of becoming desensitizing, all of this constant unrest around the world.

But from all I gather its a classic Cold War scenario, a nation and its government torn between two massive pressures, the US tugs one way, Russia tugs the other, but with greater force due to proximity and historical ties.

Don't care if it sounds clichéd and old hat... China and Russia are STILL enemies of a free, modern world... America wants to exert influence on it, those nations want to RULE most of it.

Big difference... there will be no liberal utopia in this world, "giving up war and evil weapons" will never be an option, no matter how much rational sense it makes.

I would rather drastically reduce any number of things before cutting the military and even MORE importantly, our space presence as bad as its been gutted... controling space = maintaining world balance.

And it kills me that some here would so easily give up our right to bear arms. This is the reason for that right. So we aren't fighting against an authoritarian government with rockets made from fireworks. Keep thinking this could never happen here.